BBruce: "Thus I feel that the elimination of illegal WMD programs, such as in Iraq, Iran, and N. Korea, who have shown to NOT abide by international law and treaties, IS a morally correct decision, even when human lives ( ON BOTH SIDES) are lost"

I think we can see from the Iraqi experience that the number lost on the 'other' side (ie, Iranian) will be far higher than US / Uk casualties. How many soldiers has the US lost in Iraq? 4,000? How many in the Twin Towers? 3,000? Total = 7,000. Now multiply that by almost 100 (!) and you get the scale of Iraqi deaths since the US invaded in 2003. Around 700,000 dead in 4 years. The Iraqis are clearly coming off worst, and not surprisingly, since the US has vastly superior resources - arms, vehicles, training, money. It's not a fair fight by any means, and nor will it be in Iran. And once again it will be civilians - who are alive at the moment - who will suffer and die most in any invasion of Iran. That's men, women and children, in plain English. Now, if you think 100 times Iranian casulaties are preferable to 1/100th the number of US casualties, then LH's point stands: you think US llives are worth more than Iranian lives, and have created a sliding scale of humanity in your mind.

Yes, it's better no-one developed, or had such awful weapons, but despite all their experience in Iraq, some Americans persist in believing in the might of force argument, in the beleif that you can just send in the cavalry, cut out the tumour and everything will be right again, the balance restored.
Certainly it will be far more difficult to difuse the potential for aggression now that the Us has invaded Iraq and has its troops all over the Middle East - as conquerors / occupiers in Afgahnistan and iraq, and as sentries in Saudi Arabia. How do you think this looks to the average Arab? Who do you think looks like the exapansionist aggressor? What would ordinary US folk do if Iran was massing its armies along the Mexican border, had invaded and occupied Canada and was threatening war on the US?? Come on lad, get real.